Before you gather support, work out the curriculum and calculate the budget, you need to decide why you want the school - your rationale - and its key characteristics - your vision.
Your Rationale
Unless you know why you want to set up a school you cannot know what the school will look like. Some of the most common rationales for a Free School are:
- The schools in the local area perform poorly;
- There are not enough school places in the local area;
- There is no school of this type in the local area (e.g. providing your school’s particular curriculum or ethos); and
- The performance of pupils from more deprived backgrounds is significantly lower than that of their peers.
You should use data to explain your rationale.
Define your vision
Once you know why you want a school, you need to decide:
- The guiding principles and beliefs that will inform the running of your school;
- What your school will achieve; and
- How you want parents to describe and judge your school.
From this you should be able to say:
- How will the school achieve its aims?
- How will you assess how pupils are progressing against the school’s aims?
It does not have to just be about measurable outcomes – the environment and values of the school are incredibly important.
Time spent now refining and defining the vision is critical. A clear vision and sense of purpose will make later decisions easier and enable you to choose or dismiss options as the project becomes more detailed.
You should think of your vision as the short summary that you all agree with. It should convince the DfE and prospective parents that your school is a good thing. Spend time getting the wording right.
Writing a vision statement can be daunting. If you do not know where to start but already have a clear idea of what your school will be like, it may be helpful to separately make a list of the features of your school under the following headings:
- Why do you think education is important?
- Why do you believe a school is needed (your rationale)?
- What will the focus of the school be?
- What will your curriculum include and what courses will you offer?
- Who do you want to be involved?
- What facilities and activities will you want to provide?
Having done this you can come together, pick out the most important areas of agreement and summarise them.
Further information
Read more detailed guidance in our Detailed Application Guide
Contact NSN for tailored specialist advice: info@newschoolsnetwork.org